Speed Demos Archive

E-mail from the big city. Part seven : Spare time.

Hi Guys,
    I'm sure you'll all be glad to hear that I'm settling in really well and am having a great time. The only annoyance is that for the next few weeks I will only have dial-up access to the internet. This has meant a slight problem for me but also an unexpected bonus.
    You see, I haven't met that many people yet and the city in the evening can be quite a scarey place so most nights I tend to stay in. Normally this wouldn't be a problem as I would just spend my time masturbating, but without the internet and it's wonderful naked lady websites I find I don't have the imagination to keep going for more than an hour or two before I lose interest.
    This has meant I've gotten to spend more time than usual making Quake demos and in the last week have improved four id Nightmare 100%s including taking my e2m5 record back off that Finnish choirfellah Timo. And I'm not done yet!

        Stubby.

It seems like the big city air has done Thomas Stubgaard's speedrunning skillz no end of good because he wasn't lying in his fake e-mail above, he really has improved four id records in one update. Something we haven't seen in fuck knows how long. Let's take a look at them now...

Since he mentioned that he'd done it I guess we should start with The Wizard's Manse which he recaptured from Timo by two seconds to 2:03. Same basic route except he has gone back to the elegant turny, skippy slope jump to get the last quad and he has a faster, but more painful method of attacking the final room. Some parts are faster than Timo, some parts are slower. Some parts are luckier, some parts less lucky. And still noone has had enough quad left to do "the boost"! With a lot of skill and a lot of luck I think someone will inevitably break that magic 2 minute barrier... Must Download
Next he improved his own record in the Tomb of Terror by one second to 2:01. This should definitely be faster than 2 minutes as he wastes half a box of nails picking up with a nearly full gun and then exiting with some left. God dammit if I had the ability to do the rest of the run I'd do this properly myself!
He also improved his three year old demo of the Wind Tunnels by one second to 2:00. An absolutely infuriating level to do a Nightmare 100% on due to hiding monsters. I really don't know how he has the patience...
His final demo, and my personal favourite, is a five second improvement to the shotgun only Azure Agony record. A totally new route including the world's stupidest fish, low flying fiends and a friendly deathknight to save you from the vore-blls. 3:27. Must Download

Connor Fitzgerald just doesn't know when to stop showing off! And that's a bloody good thing, I say, as it's giving us demos such as this 0:09 Nightmare Run of dm1sp, three seconds faster than Timo, using a new set of ogre grenades to blast him to the exit only one second slower than Peter's legendary Easy Run. Highly Recommended

Time for some Hipnotic madness, which can only mean one thing... It's time for Dane Plachetta!

He made two one second improvements to Ilkka's famous "what the hell is that pipe doing there anyway??" Easy Run of hip1m3, first to 0:47 and then to 0:46. He didn't do the quad up the lift due to health considerations so this could, in theory, be faster if you happened to be absolutely mental.
His next two demos were improvements to Ilkka's Easy Run Marathon of hip1. His technique was quite simple: gain a load of seconds doing the hip1m3 route seen above, then lose a couple of seconds on every other map (sometimes to quite funny mistakes) until you only end up eight seconds faster at 2:34. Alternatively, make slightly fewer mistakes and be slightly faster still at 2:32. (Don't misunderstand, these marathons are still very, very good. Just not quite the "Dangerous" Dane demos we've seen in the last few weeks :-P)

On to the cooperative demos. Starting with some intermission madness from Robert and Rickard Axelsson on dma1. Robert exited in 0:16, three seconds faster than the single player time, with 17/22 kills. Some intermission nails took care of another two monsters but what about the last three? Heh, just watch and see.

France's premier coop duo, Pif and Luc de Mestre, have had another busy week killing and runnin', runnin' and killing...

They improved their own royalwar Easy 100% time by a further six seconds to 1:01.
Then they got tough on their recent coagula3 Easy 100% and destroyed their old time by thirteen seconds to 1:43. Much better! :-)
Next they moved on to colony and used the coop spawn bug (first seen in Evan and Cameron's Easy 100%) to jump Pif halfway round the map and improve Carl and Johan's Easy Run by ten seconds to 0:18. Not a very interesting run for Luc, he just has to unpause the game and then stand there. I would have to say that he did his part of the route in the optimum time...
Exactly the same for the Nightmare Run. 0:18. Twelve seconds faster than the single player time.
To finish off they did two very nice demos on real.
- Top route planning, a nice boost and sturdy play all round gave them a twenty-one second advantage over DanielA and Basil to 1:30.
- A good looking run by Pif allowed Luc to get in to the exit stones and start killing much sooner than in the single player record. And how does he repay him? He blows his own brother clear across the room just before he exits. :-) 0:42.

That's all I have to say for today except... Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday to meeeeeheeeee! Happy birthday to me! Hurrah! I'm even older! I think I'd better start drinking.

Crispy!

All demos download is available here.

Suprises, ladies and gentlemen. That's what the first few demos are about today. Sometimes we get a demo arrive and we think to ourselves "Phew, I didn't expect him to do that". It's nice to know that even after all these years you guys can still pull off the unexpected. Starting with...

A big id Nightmare 100% improvement. Obviously this demo's going to be by Stubby, right? WRONG! Timo Nieminen swapped a bunny for a quad boost in The Wizard's Manse which enabled him to do the middle section is a different order and save four seconds over Thomas's time to 2:05. Since this new route gives you loads of spare armour and health at "the button" will we see someone save several seconds by doing the quad-boost out of the lift, as beautifully demonstrated by Robert in his winning Wizard's Pants demo? Ohhhh I hope so. :-)

When we have a really hard fought contest, such as the recent dm4sp contest, and Jozsef beats such notables as Peter, Martin and Timo to win the super fast Easy 100% category you doubt that anyone is ever going to improve it to that next whole second. WRONG! Connor Fitzgerald has really excelled himself and improved the time to 0:10 with a pixel-perfect quad boost and double intermission kill.

Staying on contest maps for the next demo, Robert and Rickard Axelsson have beaten Carl and Daniel's Easy Run of runerun by one second to 0:14. Being a coop demo this of course comes with two .dem files so you can watch the run from both players perspectives. WRONG! Rickard lost his fucking demo. Okay, that wasn't much of a suprise but I'm really starting to struggle now...

Since we're talking about contest maps, fun and Connor this would seem to be the ideal moment to remind everyone about the new contest based around the old Aerowalk map, hilariously called AeroRUN! With puns like that you just know that you have to take part...

The only thing suprising about the next demo, apart from the fact it's an Easy run and not an Easy 100%, is that it's so damned good. Even after three years it isn't easy to improve an Ilkka record, but Dane Plachetta has done it to his hip1m4 record by three seconds to 0:51. This is the smoothest I've EVER seen the trick at the end done.

The final suprise of the update (probably) is a bunch of demos from Pif de Mestre. Why is that a suprise? Well, you don't see a French speed runner for years and years and then two come along at once. I suppose it's slightly less suprising when you find out that the second Frenchman's name is Luc de Mestre and he's Pif's brother.

They started off quite conservatively, filling the empty 2-player Easy Run and Easy 100% slots on pushcoag in 1:17 and 1:33 respectively.
Soon they realised that they could do much better and improved them both to 1:14 and 1:24 respectively.
By now their confidence was growing so they moved on to royalwar and had a try at the empty Easy 100% slot. They came up with some nice routes which allowed them to exit in 1:07, thirty seconds faster than the single-player time.
Now they were really smoking and decided it was time to pit their skillz against someone else's record. They chose the Easy 100% of coagula3 currently held by Fredrik and Mark, two of the lesser known Udders. Their run was much more aggressive than the previous one and it allowed them to finish a big twenty-five seconds faster at 1:56. Nice, but still room for improvement. ;-)

That's all. No "humourous" comments or letters from Stubbz to finish with this time, I'm afraid. I've been feeling dog rough again and am pumped up on antibiotics at the moment, which somehow seems to inhibit the creative flow of talking utter bollocks. :-/

Enjoy!

Bugger. I forget to say that Timo and Connor's demos are Must Download and Dane's is Recommended. And yes, it would have been quicker to just scroll back up to the top and add them to the appropriate paragraph rather than typing this explanation. Put it down to the drugs, baby.

All demos download is available here.

*UGH*! What a terrible week. I don't know about yours but mine's been bloody awful. Therefore I think it's time to cheer us all up with some demos, some news and (firstly) a message from a departed friend.

E-mail from the big city. Part one : People.

Hi Guys,
    Well, I've arrived safely in Copenhagen and boy oh boy I've never seen so many people!
    Yesterday I was walking down the street and saw NINE other people all at the same time! I've not seen a crowd like that since last years wedding when my brother married Mom.
    Also, I was a little bit worried I would look out of place here, but luckily I saw three guys stood in the front window of "Hagar's House of Mirrors" that were dressed exactly like me! *PHEW*

        Stubby.

Nice to hear he's settling in okay. We'll be having more from Thomas once I've thought of something else stupid for him to say....

As one Stubgaard moves away, another one comes along to fill the demo-abyss he leaves behind. Mads-Peter Stubgaard has shown us that when he's not carrying his brother in coop demos he can actually be a very good single-player, too, with this Easy 100% of black3 in 1:25, two seconds faster than Optic.

In a true display of dedicated speedrunning, Dane Plachetta has not let Uni work or moving house get in the way of his continued attack on the Hipnotic levels. This time he improved his own hip1m1 Easy 100% by another second to 1:09. This is a actually the second time he did the 1:09. The first time he didn't think the end stats would be good enough for the 100% project so he re-did it with much better stats. Just like that. Show-off bastard. ;-)

Recent newcomer Pif de Mestre has been busy filling tables and beating records...

First he filled the empty Easy 100% slot on pushcoag in 2:03.
Then he did some nice long jumping (also on pushcoag) to improve Daniel's Easy Run by one second to 1:31. Will he now try the almost impossible Nightmare disciplines on this map?
No. Quite sensibly he called it a day on the vertical mile and moved on to could where he did the Easy 100% in 4:02. A tricky map do do a fast 100% on...

Thomas Bergendorff has done a fun tablefiller for the Easy 100% of nesp10. Why fun? Well how else can you describe big, curly quad rocket jumps over a large, gaping void? Initially he did it in 1:37 but since he didn't have anything better to do, such as finishing off making .avis, for example (*ahem*), he tidied it up to 1:34.

Our last demo today is a dragon-killer coop from Robert and Rickard Axelsson. Everyone knows that Robert is a boss-map junkie, and everyone knows that this pair are one or the most effective coop duo's of all time. So this Easy 0:21 of r2m8, one second faster than Nolan and Jesse, is, not suprisingly, slick, brutal and very fast.

I really couldn't let another update go past without delivering at least one of the things I've been promising. So it gives me great pleasure to kick off Speedrunning Championship 2003 contests #7 : Aerorun!. This contest is a rune-grabbing conversion of Mattias Konradsson's classic DM map "Aerowalk" by Connor Fitzgerald. It's high-octane fun for all the family and a hoot to play, so go here and get it. Ladies and gentlemen, you have three and a bit weeks to amaze us.

All demos download is available here.

Today I am proud to present to you NONE of the things I promised in the last update. But what we do have is a sweet stack of demos.

As I'm sure you are all aware, Thomas Stubgaard is moving from Odense (Population : 147) to Copenhagen (Population : 2693). How will he cope with life in the big city? We'll keep you posted on his progress, but in the mean time he's left us a little going away present.

How many id Nightmare 100% records over 2 minutes would you say it's possible to say were optimised? Until yesterday I'd have said "none", but now I'd ask you to consider The Elder God Shrine. Because of the unique "bastard fiends" element to this map (that is to say one teleports in when you press the button, another teleports in 30 seconds after you kill the first on, another 30 seconds after you kill that one, etc, until 8 fiends have been killed) you are absolutely limited to 3:30 + time to first button + time back to first fiend + kill times + time from last fiend to exit. If you make a small mistake elsewhere it doesn't matter as long as you're in position to kill the fiend as soon as it appears. Clear? Good!

So let's consider Stubby's latest demo. Time to switch : fucking fast. Time back to fiend : a lucky double-knight-telefrag makes this very fast indeed. Killing times : brutally fast. Exit time : heh, just you watch and see. 3:51, five seconds faster than previous. OPTIMUM and MUST DOWNLOAD.

Well, I'm tired out after all that typing. Luckily the adrenaline rush I'm getting from just thinking about the rest of these demos has given me the strength to continue.

When Daniel did the original nastrond Easy Run a week ago it was quite obvious that it could be improved. The man to do it (multiple times) was Kay "Ripah" Berntsen. First he improved it by nine seconds to 1:21 by simply doing the grenade jump properly. He kept getting stuck on knights and corners, though. Next he managed to avoid the corners to save another two seconds but still got stuck on the knights (also added a nice "ride the train!" exit manoeuve). 1:19. Finally he simply blasted the knights apart and bunnied happily over the piles of gibs to exit in an impressive 1:15. WooHoo!

Next we have a pair of demos from the man voted "Mr Startling" in a recent poll of everyone sat at my desk, Denis Nazarov. He has come up with a completely new route for the 100% records on pagan which has enabled him to improve both Ken's Easy 100% and his own Nightmare 100% to 0:37, three and two seconds faster respectively. In some way's this is similar in concept to Stubby's run above. Except here, as long as you can kill everything between the time you quad up and be in position when the quad runs out, all that matters is how fast you get to the quad and how well you can boost to the exit. That's going to make these records very hard to beat.

Finally, back to Stubby, this time teamed up with his more talented and better looking brother Mads-Peter Stubgaard, for a couple of coop demos. Both are excellent demos and yet each, in it's own small way, shows just what a dick Thomas can really be. :-)

First they improved Stubby and my excruciatingly hard Nightmare 100% of The Dismal Oubliette by thirty-four seconds to 6:47. A great piece of cooperative work, especially the zombie kills at the end, but you have to remember that in the demo I did with Thomas I had to do the last minute alone because he got too scared and conveniently "died" before the final section.
Next they did a powerful Nightmare 100% of The Tomb of Terror in 1:33, five seconds faster than Thomas and Nolan. Once again consistantly good play from both of them right up until the very end when Stubby bizarrely decided to save some nails for e3m4 and killed the last deathknight with just the shotgun.

That's all for today. Keep watching, though. We're never far away...

All demos download is available here.

This is it boys, my reign as SDA Supremo is over, the man in charge of running things here at SDA will be handed over to Morfans. The reason for this, is that I'm in the midst of moving to Copenhagen. I'll be moving in with my uncle in a little spare room he has, it's about 10 squarefeet :-) I've gotten rid of so much crap I had just laying around collection dust, so I should be fine even though the room is quite small. What worries me though, is that I'll lose the internet connection I currently have, and I'm not sure when I'll get connected to the internet again, so while I'm gone please re-direct everything that were meant for me to Morfans instead, that includes demos for the Projects, Comparison Demos, Cheated Demos etc etc. I'll be able to check my other email from time to time though, so if you have something important to say just email me at stubgaard@sol.dk.

But before I leave I'll post the demos we've received since last update:

Australias speedrunning sensation Dane Plachetta has made yet another improvement on hip1m4. With a stunning display of speed and skill he improved his previous record by 7 seconds to get 1:17. RECOMMENDED
Newcomer Pif de Mestre nailed his first proper SDA record with a tablefiller on royalwar. He strolled his way through the map on Easy skill getting all kills in 2:31. Not content with that demo, he quickly improved that even further by 28 seconds to 2:03, but Morfans was being a meanie as he beat Piffy's record by 26 seconds to 1:37. Bad Bad Morfans! Piffy had a go at the Nightmare Run too though, which he did in 0:51, so his efforts weren't all in vain :-)
Denis Nazarov had a go at the Easy Run, also on royalwar, and he improved Connor's record by 4 seconds to get 0:31.

All demos download is available here.

Ciao!

Oh yes indeed, as sure as I'm sat here in a low cut dress and stockings this update is all the proof you need of the old adage "If variety be the spice of life, play on, MacDuff."

What have we got? New maps? No, not today, but within a few days, we hope. Contest results? No, it doesn't end until Sunday night. The next SDA movie release? No, not for a week or so. Neekid pictures of TeamSDA? No, but if you mail me I'll send them to you.

So what does that leave us with. Well, we've had our first cheated demos for quite some time from Arturo Garcia Lasca over on the cheated page. Definitely worth a look.

We also have the first update in an age to our bunny comparison page, with demos from Anders, Ripah and Ivan. Some of our newer runners and readers might not have seen this little page before so maybe, just maybe, we'll have a few more bunny demos for you soon.

What else do we have? Oh yes! Demos on the newest map to hit the archive, nastrond.

First to try his hand at the Easy Run was Daniel Hansson (remember that name, we'll be seeing it again later) who stormed through the level in the time of 1:30. Some nice running and a little trick that suprised me at the end but he made a bit off a bollocks of the middle section so definitely improveable. We also received an Easy Run from SDA first-timer Pif de Mestre but it was slightly slower than Daniel. (Remember this name too, though. You'll be seeing it later as well.)
After hearing that Daniel had done the Easy Run Carl Tholin (remember this name, too. We're not done with him yet) decided to go one better and do the Nightmare Run. The hoards of big monsters necessitated grabbing a few secrets along the way but he still clocked in at 1:45, only fifteen seconds slower.
Then the demo I really wanted to see: Thomas Stubgaard did the Nightmare 100% in 5:24. A long, relentless deathfest from the master.
Stubby (you can forget his name now, we're done with him) also did and Easy 100% tablefiller in 3:48. Much like the previous demo but with a lot less things to kill. :-)
While we're here, I'd just like to point out that I don't ever remember a new map being completely filled in a couple of days after it was added. Nice work, people. Vondur should be pleased.

Those that checked out Ken's cheated runs earlier might have noticed that Pif de Mestre (the second name above I told you to remeber, remember?) has also done three naked demos. Welcome aboard, Piffy. Nice to see yet another new face around here!

Daniel (the first name I told you to remember) has finished the job he started last update and taken TO of a3 with a sweet Nightmare 100% in 2:41, a whole twenty-one seconds faster than Amrik.

Hansson then teamed up with Tholin (the third... oh fuck it. I wish I'd never started this now) to do a whole bunch of id coop improvements.

The started in Gloom Keep and owned both existing 100% records.
- First they hammered Nolan and Justin's Nightmare 100% into a bloody pulp with some great coordinated work and they finished in the way all good coops should, with one guy exiting just as the other guy gets the final secret/kill. 0:51(.06 :-)), nine seconds faster.
- They then had a quick go at the Easy 100%, just as a formality, and improved Marlo and Fabian's record by one second to 0:32 in no time at all.
Then on to The Ebon Fortress where they improved the Nightmare Run to 0:45, two seconds faster than Carl and Rolle. This time Carl took the passive role and just fannied around while Daniel did all the hard work.
They moved on to the Vaults of Zin and had a bash at the very frustrating Nightmare 100%. They eventually had to settle for this 1:03, two seconds faster than Evan and Optic. It's a fine demo considering how much you get knocked about on this level.
Their final demo is my personal favourite. Not sure why, I just like it. It's a big old thirteen second improvement to Nolan and Optic's Nightmare 100% of Satan's Dark Delight. Maybe it's the way Daniel killed the lift zombie, maybe it's Carl's effortless platform acrobatics. I don't know. I just enjoyed this 0:59.

Oh, I've just noticed that the cheated page has also got a new demo from Valeriy Burmistrov on it. WOOT!

That's it for this shave-up. I'm once again going to shout FORRIT CONTEST ENDS SUNDAY. ENTER IT OR I'LL RIP OFF YOUR FACE WITH MY TEETH! and then I'm going to say no more on the subject and let you go peacefully about your business.

On your way now. Evenin' all.

All demos download is available here.

Ah, marathons. You've got to love 'em. I've always said that we don't see enough marathon improvements these days. I suppose that's because they are, by definition, just so long. But this hasn't deterred Thomas Stubgaard from taking another id Nightmare 100% Marathon record to add to his collection, this time it was Daniel's Dimension Of The Doomed which he improved by a massive SIX seconds to 11:53. He started off really strongly and by the end of the Ziggurat he was twenty-one seconds ahead, then things started to slip a bit as monsters went the wrong way and his already notoriously limp wrist started flopping about like a big girl's blouse in a stiff breeze. An impressive feat nonetheless. :-)

Dane Plachetta, after his recent work on the hip1m1, hip1m2 and hip1m3 Easy 100%s has suprised us all by turning his attention to the hip1m4 Easy 100%. First he just ran around like his arse was on fire and improved Evan's record by four seconds to 1:26, then a sneaky little prox-mine boost saved another second to 1:25, and since he enjoyed that so much he started adding prox-mine boosts everywhere and got the time down to 1:24. As this is 1:24.03 I think we may see one more improvement to this before the Aussie Scourge moves on.

We're going to keep things Antipodean now with a little coop action from Connor Fitzgerald and SDA first-timer Tim Sladden. They improved Robert and Rickard's Easy Run of dm5sp by one second to 0:19. Tim didn't really have an awful lot to do, but he did it well enough to take the record. Now go and do another record immediately to make up for that "geek" crack! ;-)

It has been said that Daniel Hansson has a mind like a speedrunning butterfly, flitting from map to map and never making more than one demo before moving on. Why this was said is a mystery as it's clearly bollocks. After doing his 874th improvement on the czg07 levels (see last update) he has moved on to break Amrik's TO of a3 with four cock-slapping demos.

First the Easy Run. It's always a pleasure to watch runs on this map due to the huge slope/fiend boost. He improved the time by three seconds to 0:55, recapturing his record after two and a half years. Next day he improved it by a further two seconds to 0:53.
Relentless SNG action and some cooperative monsters that just lined up ready to die helped him improve the Easy 100% to 2:40, 9 seconds faster.
The Nightmare Run looks startlingly similar to the Easy Run, just with more monsters flailing about helplessly in the background. The result was only slightly slower clocking in at 0:56, six seconds faster.

Now that we're done with this weeks demos I think it's time we added another map to this grand 'ol archive. It's a brand new map, only released a couple of days ago, from Vondur and it's called Nastrond. It's a pretty big map but there seems to be quite a lot of potential for cutting corners. I don't think we'll ever see 0:10 runs on this one but we all love it so we're adding it. You can get it from here. Please call your demos nas_xxx.

However, before you all go Nastrond crazy don't forget that there's only just over a week to go before the deadline for the Forgotten Ritual contest, and it'd be nice to see a big stack of entries for this one. And yes, I know the dogs are annoying on Easy Skill... :-)

Finally, in response to the call from a few people for a more normal looking Rabbit Run movie there are now two new downloads available in our videos section (it's under "miscellaneous" in the menu in case you were unaware) of the Rabbit Run using standard textures and lighting and stuff like that.

Go on, you know you love it!

All demos download is available here.

God bless copy and paste. One flick of the mouse and the update's half done already. So if the layout seems a little deja-vu-esque don't worry I just moved the bottom paragraph of the last update to the top and changed a few words. And added a little bit because some people will insist on doing unexpected demos.

The reason I've moved Weixing Ye up to the top of this update is because I think that this demo deserves a MUST DOWNLOAD, a rare privilege for a non-id demo. He improved his Nightmare 100% record on rings2 by one second to equal Joe's Easy 100% time. He used a slightly different route in order to survive the shambler onslaught and exited in an optimum 0:07.

And now the new maps...

The first demos on could are in. It looks like we maybe should have had one last time but Amrik has been having all kinds of hell trying to send demos in to us. :-/
- So it was Thomas Bergendorff who took the Easy Run record with a trick-laden but slightly messy 1:03. But this wasn't the first demo we received. Oh no oh no!
- The very first demo was a beautiful piece of coop ballet from Daniel "Bulging Tights" Hansson and Carl "Tutu" Tholin. A 2-man double grenade pirouette helped them complete the Easy run in 0:48. Worth downloading for the artwork alone! :-)
pagan3 ~~on the other hand~~ also has had ~~three~~ two demos...
- Anders Nordensten finally managed to improve his Easy Run by one second to get the optimum 0:07.
- Whereas Basil de Vries did the pagan3 Nightmare 100% in 0:32. Except that it was on Normal Skill. So in his embarassment he did it again and this time got a 0:31!
Now royalwar, and Connor Fitzgerald realised that he'd missed a fairly simple trick in his Easy Run so he did it again and added a bastard hard boost as well to get 0:35, ten seconds faster. Recommended

Dane Plachetta shows no sign of letting up on the Hipnotic levels. But before he moves on to any new levels he has tidied up his recent hip1m3 Easy 100%. There wasn't a lot wrong with his previous demo but the whole of this 1:31 up until he hits his head on the roof by the big lift is just so damn smooth. Five seconds faster. Recommended

Dane is not the only person bringing the Hipnotic records up 2003 standards. Connor Fitzgerald has improved two old Nightmare Runs.

He improved Nolan's hip2m3 record by two seconds to 0:46. No new tricks, just good monster management and faster boosting.
Same with hip2m5. Relentless blasting and monster cooperation saved him one second over Justin's ancient record to get 0:40.

Back to Carl and Daniel for a 2:37 Easy 100% of czg07a, twenty-two seconds faster than Nolan and Evan. Carl says that this is the first time that Daniel has played this map, and after seeing the other seventeen demos he's made on it over the last two years I can well believe it. :-)

Finally another coop from the Danish Duo of Thomas and Mads-Peter Stubgaard. They are cutting a pretty cool path through the id Easy 100%s at the moment and continued this by improving Tommi and Kari's Hell's Atrium record by four seconds to 1:03.

Should I say more? I don't think I can.

All demos download is available here.

Today we have something for everybody. Demos on new maps, demos on old maps and demos on maps of an intermittent age. What more could a young girl ask for?

First the new maps...

It was Shambler baying like a spavined lamb that finally convinced us to add could to the archive so soon after it was released. Now, I'm sure you're all aware by now that my politeness and tact are legendary but in honour of the gentleman's own well known literary style I will say this: Tough bollocks, fuck-face, nobody has done any demos yet. :-)
pagan3 on the other hand has had three demos...
- Anders Nordensten broke the record for the quickest demo ever to hit our inbox after a map was posted. This 0:08 Easy Run arrived before he'd even finished downloading the map!
- Then, after some talk on the IRC channel between Anders and Marvin about whether a 0:07 could be done, Thomas Bergendorff decided that the most aggravating thing he could do was to do a 0:07 Nightmare Run. Which he did. I don't think the Easy Run is optimised yet, chaps. :-)
- And after braying like a rectally violated equine for royalwar to be added, Basil de Vries did the pagan3 Easy 100% in 0:32. Lots of possible routes, is this one the best?
Speaking of royalwar, Connor Fitzgerald took this map's hymen with this 0:45 Easy Run. An excellent run but he's improved it already. You'll have to wait a day or two to see that demo I'm afraid as I am a sadist.

A wise man once stated about a tube of Pringles "once you pop, you just can't stop!", and the same seems to be true about Dane Plachetta and Hipnotic levels. Except he doesn't actually "pop" them he improves their Easy 100% records. Man that was a poor metaphor even by my standards. Especially since I don't even know if they sell Pringles outside the UK and even if they do they probably don't use the same advertising slogan. Probably best if you just ignore me and watch these two outstanding demos...

He improved Ilkka's hip1m1 record by two seconds to 1:10. Unless anyone thinks they can do better this will form the first level of the Hipnotic 100% project.
He also improved Ilkka's old hip1m3 record by seven seconds to 1:36. There's a couple of slight mistakes later on (very slight) but the start is breathtaking!

Our final demo of today is a piece of real quality from Weixing Ye. He has fought back against Connor nicking all his dm5sp records by taking his Easy 100% route, running it smoother and adding a great piece of intermission violence to take the time down to 0:36, three seconds faster. But what's that little hint about it being your last demo?? Say it ain't so, bro!

Finally, the obligatory contest reminder. I hope you all got the message about needing to re-download the map. If not, see below for details.

Have fun and don't forget to purge regularly.

All demos download is available here.

To those of you that I faithfully promised I'd post the update yesterday I can only say this : I lied. Not maliciously or deliberately but undeniably lie I did.

But I'm not going to let that ruin the mood around here. There's just too many first class demos to let a simple little untruth spoil things. And we're going to start off with a brand new runner who is, frankly, pretty damn good.

Our 204th official SDA runner goes by the name of Dane Plachetta and he's showcased his 100% skillz on hip1m2 in a Fleck crushing display of death.

His first demo was the Easy 100% which he improved by fifteen seconds over Justin's record to 1:51. Many small tweaks and a new way of doing the boxroom make this an impressive debut.
He also improved Optic's Nightmare 100% by a fat twenty seconds to 2:43

Connor Fitzgerald keeps finding cool new tricks on the DMxSP maps. This time he improved Weixing's Easy Run of dm5sp by one second to 0:20 with the help of a slope and a gib. A trick I thought should be possible but didn't ever expect to actually see. :-)

It's always the way around here. It all goes quiet on the Udder front and then Daniel Hansson comes storming back with a whole batch of demos. The first two of which, like sex, he did on his own...

First he improved his own Easy Run record on placebo to 1:44, four seconds faster. A long and involved run.
The second demo had evryone here at Castle SDA cursing his name as a big nosed, blue arsed mutha fukkah. Not because we don't love him dearly, we do. In fact Lodis once told me that if he ever went over to batting for the other side it'd be Daniel's butt-cheeks that he'd want to find himself nestled between.[1] No, the reason we were cursing is that he did the Easy Run of pushcoag in 1:32 and we were hoping to quietly remove the map from the tables when we added the next batch of new maps since noone had done any demos on it and it's perhaps the most run unfriendly map we've ever seen. Oh well. I guess we're stuck with it now...

That's this week's single player demos kicked squarely in the stones. But before we get on to the coop action it's time to announce...

Speedrunning Championship 2003 Contest #6 : Forgotten Ritual

Yes indeed. Contest #6 is now underway. See here for the details and map download link. Big thanks to Ivan Vladev for making the map for this contest. Please show your appreciation to Ivan in the traditional manner, by making some demos on his map.

Next we have a whole bunch of coop demos. Starting with a stack of 2-player action from Robert and Rickard, also known as The Bloody Fist Of Axelsson. This name derives from their great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother, Ethel "BloodFist" Axelsson, the notorious fifteenth century large handed lesbian.

They began with a frenzy of shotgun boosting on drakopf and managed to beat Ilkka's single player time by one second to 0:11.
They also did three almost identical runs on discoag2. But just because all three demos use the same set of tricks doesn't make them any less impressive. Some precission grenade throwing from Rickard and a beautiful curling slope grenade jump into a narrow gap from Robert gave them 0:21 for the Easy Run, 0:23 for the Easy 100% and 0:23 for the Nightmare Run.
Quite a simple demo next. Using the old "one presses the button while the other waits by the door" trick they managed to slice one second off of the SP time by Anders for the Easy Run of nesp10 to 0:08.
And finally an Easy Run on dm5sp in 0:20. Yes, I know that the current SP time is also 0:20 but since Connor only did that earlier on in this update this record will still stand. It's also a rather nice piece of coop play, as you'd expect from these two. :-)

A really class piece of coop action from another pair of brothers, this time we see the return of the team of Thomas and Mads-Peter Stubgaard. They improved Nolan and Stefan's Easy 100% of The Dismal Oubliette by thirty-one seconds to 2:07. Consistantly good play from both players was almost spoiled when Stubby muffed a long bunny, but he made up for it at the end and won this weeks "fuck me that was lucky" prize for the final vore kill.

We'll round off this update with the two Udder coops I alluded to earlier. First it was the turn of Daniel Hansson and Carl Tholin to do the Easy Run Marathon of czg07 which they did in 1:51, 5 seconds faster than the 3-player marathon. More please, you two! :-)

Daniel then teamed up with Daniel Andersson to improve the Nightmare Run of czg07c he did with Carl by four seconds to 0:24.

And now.... I go.

All demos download is available here (Denmark).

[1] This is a lie. Lodis said no such thing. It was Stubby. :-P

Here's the tRR video we promised (check the SDA promotion video update for the story) some weeks ago. It weighs in at 284 MB, so it's quite a hefty download. Jozsef Szalontai is once again the man behind the production. The video makes use of the JoeQuake engine along with custom textures and sounds (the super-shotgun sound is awesome!), so there's plenty of eyecandy and fun stuff for those who like that. I know some of you wasn't too fond of the eyecandy in the SDA video, and you probably won't be too pleased about how the tRR video looks, but we can't make everyone happy. The feedback we got from the SDA video has been overwhelmingly positive (mostly), and I doubt the tRR video will be received any different.

And no, there WON'T be a pak file version released of tRR, at least not yet. Maybe a miracle occurs and we somehow get to make the movie tRR was originally intended to be. But until then it's unlikely we'll release a pak version. If you beg us enough, maybe we'll reconsider :-)

And let me just explain to those who have no clue what the Rabbit Run is: It's a sequal to the original Quake done Quick lite run (link). In tRR all of Quake is completed on Easy skill in 10 minutes and 58 seconds! It's a 2 minutes and 56 second improvement over the previous release. The tRR project was started somewhat 4 years ago, and it has been postponed numerous times due to lack of interrest in the project. It was meant to be our greatest and most extensive movie to date, but sadly enough it wasn't meant to be. But as I said, maybe a miracle suddenly appears, that's why we're not releasing a pak version of the video yet... I hope everyone understands.

Grab the video HERE. (FilePlanet). And HERE. (Blueyonder)

Since yesterday was international "Knife a Swedish Politician Thursday" it seems only fitting that the demos today come from four of our best Swedish runners...

First up we have two Must Download improvements to id levels from Super-Swede Timo Nieminen.

First he improved his recent Easy 100% demo of The Pain Maze by another three seconds to 1:48. Only a little bit of spawn trouble spoils an otherwise pretty flawless looking run.
His next feat was to beat one of my personal favourite records, Alex's Azure Agony Easy 100%. I know this demo is now three years old but it's still a fine example of pin-point accurate shotgun work. Timo's demo is better, though. Three seconds better. 2:02.

Our newest Swedish running sensation, Connor Fitzgerald, has produced two excellent demos this week...

They do say that revenge is a dish best served with a light pasta sauce, or something like that, so it must have given Connor great cullinary satisfaction to take his revenge on Martin and reclaim the dm2sp Easy Run. A great new trick involving some precision grenade placing allowed him to improve the time by one more second to 0:20. Recommended. Back to you, Mr Selinus?
He also made a few changes to the Easy 100% route on dm5sp, adding a jump here and a boom there to improve the time to 0:39, three seconds faster than Weixing.

Last week we had the first demo from Ken in a while, and now it's time for a demo from another old face, "The Swedish Tornado" Amrik Kochhar. He proved that he hasn't quite lost all his skillz, such as they were, and did a nice tablefiller for the Easy 100% of chain3 in 1:56. Good to see you back, Amrik.

Our final demo is also a Coagula Contest tablefiller and comes from bodybuilding giant Basil "Mr Sweden" de Vries. He filled the tricky discoag2 Nightmare Run slot in the time of 0:39. Quite apart from the sheer weight of monsters that get in your way on this map it's tricky to do because of the vores balling you and the knights slashing you as you try and contend with the final shambler. But a handy double telefrag takes some of that pressure off...

We'll have a new contest ready in, hopefully, a day or two. Until then, keep on running!

All demos download is available here (Denmark).

Busy week, huh? Menus, movies, forums and demos. Demos? What do you mean "you haven't seen any demos this week"? Ah, that'll be because we haven't posted any. :-)

To be honest we've only had a few in this week, but once again quality kicks quantity square in the nutz...

Martin Selinus captured the Easy Run of dm3sp from Anders by using Anders's Nightmare route (plus a couple of cool new tricks). He blasted himself to the exit in 0:27, three seconds faster.
Weixing Ye has been applying himself to the jesus 100%s. And with his usual thoroughness he disembowled the current records.
- He threw caution to the wind and went on a quad rampage through the Nightmare 100%, improving Basil's time by twenty-six seconds to 1:38.
- Then he improved his own Easy 100% to 0:57, three seconds faster.
If I was doing this update on the forum instead of the news page I'd be trying to work out how to insert one of those smilies of the little smiley git thing playing a violin. And that violin would be playing for Connor Fitzgerald. He successfully improved his Easy Run of dm2sp by two seconds, but that was a day after the unstoppable Marvin had sent in his own 0:21. Two sweet (almost identical) demos but only one record.
It's been quite some time since these old fingers have had to type the name Arturo Garcia Lasca, but it seems that the deranged Dominican has taken heed of the recent health warning about the connection between spending too long deathmatching frogbots and having sex with dead. He has therefore humbly and quietly (HA!) returned to the SDA fold, bringing with him this one second improvement to his pagan Easy 100%. 0:40.

That's the demos done, and before I go it only remains for me to remind you that the deadline for the Wizard's Pants contest is MIDNIGHT TOMORROW (SUNDAY). I don't know if we'll see an optimum route since every single entry we've had so far has used a different route, but I'm really looking forward to seeing just who can do what. (if you see what I mean...)

All demos download is available here (Denmark).